Friday, June 09, 2017

Fake You All!

It's everywhere you look. You wanted to change your life so you decided to become vegan. No problem. You don't have to give up eggs, meat, or cheese because there are smart people out there willing to give you eggs, meat, and cheese that will not conflict with your becoming vegan. Add some chemicals, take some vegan food, tart it up a bit, and voila! eggs, meat, and cheese -- as much as you want without cheating or giving up being vegan. You've been faked. The world has been faked and lines up to play the vegan game with faked eggs, meat, and cheese.

The same goes for the gluten free crowd. A little almond meal, ground up flax seeds, and a touch of gluten-free flour made from grains that do not contain gluten stirred together and mashed up with chemicals and substitutions that do not contain gluten and you have bread. The bread is mealy and gritty and doesn't taste all that good since you left out all the spices and chemicals or other substitutes and dyes made of foods that also do not contain gluten to maintain your gluten free status, and you will get used to the off flavor or the hint of chemicals that comes through when all the ingredients are baked up together at sufficient heat. After all, you don't want to look like you've gone back on your pledge to go gluten free or pretend that changing your whole lifestyle isn't worth the struggle to appear to being going along. What does it matter that you look like you're still going along with the majority of the pack while giving up gluten for your health and to prolong your life?

It's popular to go along with the rest of the world who have decided it is best to fake it until you make it. Food is just one area where faking it is acceptable. Nothing is worth the struggle to give up whatever you grew up with and nothing is worth giving up the appearance of going with the crowd. You are strong. You are ingenious. You are adaptable. You canfake it until you make it.

There is no part of life that is immune to the philosophy that faking it is acceptable until what you look like you're doing will finally catch up with doing what you were faking all along. After all, the ends justify the means.

Doesn't it?

We lie on our resumes, padding the facts with half truths and outright lies to fake it until we make it. Who's going to know? You're new at the job, fresh out of training or school, and it takes time to get up to speed. You are willing to fake it until you make it, or at least until your manic study habits catch up with the person you're replacing has clued you in on what to watch out for and whom you need to avoid until you're up to speed. You pray every morning, noon, and night that you will be able to cram years of study into reading the stack of books that educate you on what you need to do. The universe owes you a favor -- or at least the person who hired you for the position owe you for that gift or favor you did for them to get hired in the first place. The same goes for promotions and newly created positions that you maneuvered yourself into because you need the money, need the prestige, or simply need to get away from the hole you dug for yourself with your attitudes and/or lip. You faked it until you made it this far, so why not fake it until you make it wherever you go or whatever you do?

It's not a crime (yet until you've been caught) and it's certainly not going to cost a person their life because you haven't faked it as a nurse until you felt confident you could fake it as a doctor. Okay, the diplomas on your new office wall were created in a computer, but you have at least a decade of working under some egotistic doctor and making the doctor look good while you did all the heavy lifting and closed his operations. No one could leave the patient with a fine scar that disappears with time the way you did. After all, you turned your sewing skills from cloth to people and the results have garnered the doctor kudos and awards for the fine stitchery. He never told anyone he couldn't sew a straight seam if it killed him and you saved him from criticism far too many times for him to fess up now. How would it look if his patients knew a nurse had finished his surgery and left a fine, nearly invisible scar? The doctor couldn't justify his high fee and there is no way the doctor is going to give up the awards and professional kudos you earned, so there is no way the doctor is going to refund the fees or give you a rise in salary. The doctor faked it and you made it happen. It's a win-win situation and no one willing gives that up, certainly not you.

There is no part of life where someone isn't faking it until they have made it. No position, office, restaurant, cafe, or arena is free of the fakes, especially when the faking ended with success. When faking didn't end with making it, there are plenty of other paths to take. Some end in death from too many drugs or tangling with the wrong person that ended with tears and death. After all, faking it until you make it is not without cost. To everything there is a cost -- not only with magic but with every single venture undertaken in the name of faking it until you've made it. With life -- and with faking it -- there is risk. It's a gamble and sometimes gambles pay off. Ever hear of junk bonds? Horse races? The first gender reassignment surgeries? Prospecting? Divorce? Life? Money market trades? Bad reviews? Blind dates? Arranged marriages?

When we get down to it, life is about risk. Life is a gamble. There are people who have power and are willing to exercise that power to fake it until they make it . . . no matter who or what it costs. In the end, when all else fails, fake the data, fudge the truth, cite an anonymous source, set someone else up for the frame so you can get away with whatever you want when the fake is discovered or when it fails. Humanity is wired to look for the brighter side of things, to be positive, to make the best of a bad situation -- or a bad fake -- and to keep going. Sure, there will be suicides and deaths, but who will miss a few people, except for the ones who knew them best. Nothing is guaranteed except for death and taxes; everyone knows that.

If nothing else, faking it until you make it can be chalked up to sacrifice in the name of a greater good or some god or famous person, and wars are good vehicles for sacrifice in the name of the greater good. It doesn't matter which side you chose as long as you died for a cause. Even if you didn't believe in the cause and were drafted, none of it matters because your death will be numbered among the other clueless and numberless dead where someone will be ready to fake a reason until the people believe it. When the people who know the truth are gone, history will remember. So what if history is made up by your enemies as long as there are gullible people who remain and will spew the slogans they read or were taught until the truth is no longer relevant. It doesn't matter if history is written by the winners because the historian with the best story will be read and repeated drowning out the truth and those who wrote and knew about the truth. The weight of evidence is in the loudness and prevalence of the voices. The voices of truth that remain will either give up or they will be criticized, reviled, and buried when their positions are taken away and their truth called into question by the loudest voices and the strongest bullying or at least by whoever has enough money and power to destroy the evidence of the truth until only the false history remains and has passed into the realm of fairy tales and deluded scholars.

All that remains will be those faking it until they make it -- or at least convince those who have been paid and derailed with some bright new toy. Truth doesn't matter as long as faking it until you make it is the first long step into the abyss of ignorance and popularity. Everyone remembers the famous, especially those who die while faking it. In the end, they faked it until they made it -- posthumously -- and history will write it so.